Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Navy expansion could halt King of the Hammers event

Less than a week after the King of the Hammers off-road race in
Johnson Valley, the U.S. Navy on Wednesday issued its decision on a
proposed expansion of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in
Twentynine Palms that could put a brake the popular event as well as all
off-roading in the high desert.The
official record of decision, which Marine officials said will be
available online today, endorses a plan that would give the Corps more
than half the 188,000 acres of public off-roading area located about 20
miles north of Yucca Valley. Bumping up on the western boundary of the
base, the land is now under the protection of the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management. As outlined in a previous environmental impact report released in
July, 108,530 acres of the valley would be permanently closed to
off-roaders and used instead for training exercises involving thousands
of Marines, along with tanks, helicopters and live ammunition.An
additional 38,137 acres — including the valley’s world-famous
rock-crawling trails, known as the Hammers — would become a “dual-use”
area, available to off-roaders for 10 months a year. The Marines would
use the area for training exercises for the other two months, but would
not use live ammunition, the report said. The proposed expansion would also include 21,304 acres directly southeast of the existing Marine base.Marine
officials have said they need the extra land for training exercises
that are critical for the Corps’ post-Middle East role as a
slimmed-down, rapid-response force...more

According to the 2012 DoD Base Structure Report, the DoD owns or controls over 28 million acres of land. Don't tell me they don't already have enough to practice on, with much to spare.And any ranchers or rural landowners out there who have been supporting our interventions in the Middle East might want to reconsider that support.